Technologies are important in our modern world. Some people cannot even ‘live’ without a smartphone, a smartwatch, a laptop, and more. They rely too much on these technologies. Technologies also upgrade from time to time. People, without a doubt, spend their money to get a new version of the technologies and discard the old ones.
Thus, scientists at Chicago University created a smartwatch to experiment the relationship between people and modern technology. Interestingly, the smartwatch is powered by a living organism — slime mold ( Physarum polycephalum ).
The creation is inspired by a Japanese toy, Tamagotchi, that became a phenomenon in the 90s. The smartwatch is similar to the toy which allows users to feed it to keep it functioning.
For the smartwatch to keep functioning, users need to feed the slime mold with a mixture of water and oat. Thus, when the living organism grows, it will activate the smartwatch’s heart rate monitor function.
The initial purpose of creating the smartwatch is to see the relationship between people and their gadgets. Thus, to make that happen, scientists give away five of the smartwatches to five people.
The five people then cared for them with all their hearts until they were asked to stop. From the experiment, scientists found out that those people became emotionally attached to their smartwatches. Some even felt guilty.
The smartwatch will not be available in the market sooner or later as scientists wanted to stress the importance of emotional attachment.
Source: Oddity Central